Construction is progressing nicely on a heritage park that will be located along the northern part of Water Street, with completion of the $720,000 project expected to be a couple of months away.

“Right now the project is moving along pretty well as planned,” says Warner Comeau, chair of the waterfront development corporation. “We’re scheduled for completion at the end of October, but it will be substantially complete probably the end of September, the only thing remaining after that will be the clock tower for the old Milton clock.

“At this point in time we haven’t had any surprises and no cost overruns,” he adds.

The heritage park is being constructed on the west side of Water Street, across from the Wendy’s/Tim Hortons business. When the funding application went into the federal government the project was being called the Yarmouth Industrial Heritage Interpretation Court, but Warner says that name will likely change.

As for what the end result of the property will be, Warner describes what people can expect.

“There will be some winding walkways, not a sidewalk per say, but walkways that go along the length of the waterfront, and sort of centred in that will be a clock tower built with the workings of the old Milton clock in it,” Comeau says.

“There will be some seating areas and a fair amount of planting,” he adds. “Plus there are going to be some interpretative panels, one facing the cotton mill area describing what went on in there and others facing in other directions describing what has gone on on the waterfront in the past.”

There will also be an orientation panel that will direct people to other points of interest along the waterfront.

Comeau says this work brings the corporation closer to realizing its goal as far as waterfront development is concerned.

“The initial plan was to do from Bunkers Island all the way up to the Milton bridge area so this now moves us up a little closer to the northern end of it,” he says. “We’re quite excited about it. We think it’s going to do a lot for the residents and the businesses in that end of town.”

Delmar Construction Limited is the general contractor on the project and Hurlburt Construction Limited is the major subcontractor. Mark Bourque, owner of Delmar Construction Ltd., talks about some of the work that’s taken place and what is planned.

He says a good part of the work carried out thus far has included rock protection and stabilization along the shore. Last week a lot of curbing work was taking place. The street is being widened with curbing added to accommodate parallel parking spaces along the west side of the street.

“The site has been rough graded and we’re preparing to begin a few other things there now,” says Bourque, who expects things to progress fairly quickly at the site over the next month.

“It definitely depends on the weather but you’ll see asphalt beginning shortly, you’ll see the paved walks beginning…shortly after that the top soil and the landscaping,” he says, adding the construction of the foundation for the clock tower will also be beginning.

Asked whether the recent wet weather has had any impact on the pace of construction, Bourque says not really.

“Not a whole lot,” he says. “We were running a little bit ahead of schedule, the rain might have brought us back to schedule.”

Bourque also adds that although there have been traffic slowdowns associated with the curbing, overall there hasn’t been too much disruption to traffic.

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is contributing just over $485,000 to the project with the Town of Yarmouth kicking in just over $236,000.

Although the project will be completed this fall and will be available to public use, an official opening will likely take place next spring.